The Exchange is a Grade I listed building built in 1741–43 by John Wood the Elder, on Corn Street, near the junction with Broad Street in Bristol, England. It was previously used as a corn and general trade exchange but is now used as offices and St Nicholas Market.
The Exchange underwent major building work in 1872, including roofing over the courtyard, and again in the early 1900s when the City Valuer's Department moved to the building. Since World War II the external clock tower has been removed and the roof lowered.
Outside the building are four bronze tables dating from the 16th and 17th centuries, known as "nails," at which merchants carried out their business. At the front of the building is a clock showing both Greenwich Mean Time and "local time".
The Exchange was built in 1741–43 by John Wood the Elder, with carvings by Thomas Paty. Wood was also the architect of the Liverpool Exchange, which was completed in 1754 and gutted by fire in 1795. The London Exchange of Wood's day was also destroyed by fire in 1838. Bristol's Exchange is therefore unique, the only surviving 18th-century exchange building in England.
When finished in 1743 the Exchange, as planned, had "the outward appearance of one grand structure,” and the much-admired exterior remains today largely as built. The front of the building has Corinthian columns in the centre and pilasters to the sides. A central semicircular-arched doorway has cast-iron lion-head knockers. A frieze with human and animal heads symbolises trade, and a Royal Coat of Arms is displayed in the tympanum. The rear of the building is symmetrical with pedimented windows and semicircular ground-floor arches.
Internally, however, it consisted of various spaces. On either side of the front entrance in Corn Street were a coffeehouse and tavern, each of four storeys. Above and below the main entrance were rooms designed as strongrooms. In the centre of the Exchange was an open court, surrounded by a colonnade. At the back of the building was a two-storey range, consisting of an arcade on the ground floor and a long first-floor room. Facing All Saints Lane were two four-storey houses for business or trades persons, and on the frontage to Exchange Avenue were a further three houses. Below these various elements were cellars. Those below the five houses were each separate; the others were mostly interconnected.
In 1872 a major programme of building works was undertaken to a design by Edward Middleton Barry. This provided a roof over the central court of the Exchange and a new suite of offices on the first floor above the colonnades around the court. Other internal alterations appear to have been made in the late 19th century, possibly also by Barry in 1872. This is uncertain as Barry's plans are yet to be found. Further extensive alterations were made in the 1900s when the City Valuer's Department moved to the Exchange in 1907. These included the provision of a lift from the basement and cellars to the first floor and major alterations to the cellars under the central part of the Exchange. Since 1945 further alterations have included the replacement of the roof over the central court by a temporary roof at a lower level, the removal of the clock tower at the back of the building and the internal rebuilding of all four floors of the coffeehouse together with the corresponding floors over the main entrance.
Despite its name it was intended for merchants of all types, and a number directly involved in the Guinea and West Indian slave trade used it for business transactions. Inside the Corn Exchange the plasterwork in the main hall represents the four corners of the world, including Africa and America, the latter wearing a headdress of tobacco leaves. On the outside of the building are carvings of African, American, Asian and European figures and animals, again symbols of Bristol's foreign trade including the Bristol slave trade.
During the mid- to late 1960s the Exchange was a popular concert venue. British Beat groups including The Rolling Stones,The Yardbirds,Cream,The Pretty Things and Spencer Davis all played several times in the main hall. A regular Tuesday night club called The Bristol Chinese R'n'B and Jazz Club was also established which attracted American Blues singers including John Lee Hooker, Sonny Boy Williamson and Little Walter.
Today the Exchange is designated as a Grade I listed building. Always owned by the City of Bristol, the building has served a variety of purposes, currently housing offices of both the former City Valuer's Department, Market Traders and the Joint Trade Unions Safety Office.
The Exchange, Corn Street, was built to provide a space for Bristol's merchants to transact their business; previously they had used the open arcaded Tolzey outside the nearby church of All Saints, from where the historic nails, said to be the original subjects of the expression 'to pay on the nail', were moved. The Corporation started planning a replacement in 1717, but it was not until 1741 that John Wood was given the commission. Wood originally proposed a covered hall rather than an open court, but 'the Citizens in General, then startled with the Novelty of a covered Place to meet in upon Mercantile Affairs', insisted on the model employed for exchanges in Antwerp and London since the sixteenth century. The building incorporated a tavern and coffee house to make business run more smoothly; another coffee house was built adjacent to the Exchange in 1782 (also listed).
During the first half of the eighteenth century Bristol enjoyed great prosperity, and the Exchange served both to facilitate business and to demonstrate its success. Much of Bristol's trade depended on slavery, its merchants being involved in every part of the 'triangular trade'. Metal-wares which were used to purchase slaves were made in Bristol; Bristol ships transported slaves from the African coast to work on plantations in the West-Indies, then carried back sugar to be refined in Bristol factories. Tobacco, also produced by slave labour, was an essential part of Bristol's economy. Between 1630 and 1807 about 2.5 million Africans were bought and sold by Bristol merchants.
The decoration of the Exchange, both on the facade and in the courtyard, proudly proclaims the international nature of Bristol's trading interests which, directly or indirectly, were associated with the slave trade. The rich carving below the frieze at the front of the building was described by Wood as representing 'Great Britain and the four Quarters of the World, with the chief Products and Manufactures of every Country'. Exotic animals include a camel and an elephant. The carved heads include an African woman and an Indian man (Bristol merchants were involved in the East India trade, buying Indian textiles which would then procure slaves), and an American Indian woman (Bristol slavers delivered thousands of slaves to America). In the Exchange proper, intended to accommodate six hundred merchants, plasterwork heads representing Africa, India, and America, look down from above three doors.